7:37 AM: i always have a drawing book with me whenever we travel. here are a few of them.
"tennis suite" has become "pink & blue" / A NEW STUDIO DOOR WINDOW IMAGE /
pink & blue as it looked following todays session
12:51 PM: tennis suite was too restricting as a title, so it’s now pink & blue. i’m finally able to use my nikon to shoot the paintings. i was using my iphone because my card reader gave out & i had to wait for the new one to arrive.
i painted over most of what i did over the last few days, now that i’m freed from the tennis theme. as usual, my first burst of energy is what counts. i remembered to forget and just go where my heart and hand direct me. amongst other things, i remembered my plastic bubble wrap and what cool marks it makes when you smear paint on it then press onto the canvas. and i remembered the importance of black. the black & white patterning indicate the sleeve of the post-olympics celebration guy doing a hand stand. and the green leaves were inspired by a shot i took from above, of mikela in a musuem foyer with lots of plants.
STUDIO DOOR: my west facing studio door has a 35x21” window. until this morning, i had a 2 canvas painting mounted on the inside facing out. today, after many months , i felt it needed replacement. so i took the two attached canvases down, cut a piece of foam core from the recent delivery of my new full length mirror and taped one of my paper palettes to it. i keep some of them because, when i’m squeezing paint onto the palette, and smooshing it around with the brush, i’m more likely to create something interesting than when i’m working on a painting! so it actually served as an inspiration for what i did today on pink & blue!!
tennis suite 1 day 3 6-11-24 / TSAROUCHIS in my 1974 catalogue /
2:24 PM:C i brought tennis suite 1 to the next level today. a central figure now dominates the composition. dominates is the key word here; as i gaze at it now, i feel that this figure, as dynamic as it may be, does not allow the eye the fredom it needs to enjoy the composiiotn as a whole. right now i’m too tired to make changes, so it will have to wait till tomorrow.
1:40 PM: this is an excerpt from a text by tsarouchis for my 1974 solo exhibition in athens.
TENNIS SUITE 1 day 2 6-10-24 /
TENNIS SUITE 1 day 2 6-10-24 5pm
5:54 PM: i went back to the studio because i forgot to clean my brushes. while i was there i made a few tweaks.
TENNIS SUITE 1 day 2, 35x35” oil on oil primed portrait linen
3:06 PM: more players have appeared, as well as the skateboarding girl. the composition is beginning to take shape, and tomorrow is likely to be a critical day. thus far, although i’ve done some scraping , i haven’t used collage at all, nor have i painted over anything . my intention is for this to be a series with a lighter touch.
BELOW: day 1 and day 2
DETAIL
tennis suite /
tennis suite 1, 35x35” oil on portrait linen, on day one, as it looked moments ago
2:54 PM: we’re watching the french open matches. there are lots of beautiful images of the players shot from above, which as you know is my favorite thing to include in a painting. so mikela paused the video images at points that seemed interesting in terms of form, color, movement and shadows, and i shot stills. this is the first painting i’m making on the new roll of portrait linen that arrived a few days ago. it’s my favorite surface to work on; takes the paint beautifully!
skateboarding girl cropped / pine peak on5/2/24, 3pm /
skateboarding girl cropped just now
12:05 PM: skateboarding girl was always too busy. so today i cut it down and stretched it on a 24x18” stretcher bar. i can now gaze at her without my eye wandering all over the canvas in utter confusion! oh, you might think, what a shame to go from a 42x42” painting down to a 24x18”. so what? what counts is the final result which, in this case, makes it well worth it!
pine peak, 42x42” completed may 2, 2024 and now hanging in our home.
7:39 AM: pine peak, 42x42” oil & collage on linen, was completed on may 2 and currently hangs in our house. it’s one of my recent paintings that stands out and holds up over time. every painting can’t be a winner, and it’s impossible to know until some time passes and, as with this one, you never tire of gazing at it and are always finding something you hadn’t previously noticed.
further work on skateboarding girl / study of a matisse i made on 1/12/24 /
SKATEBOARDING GIRL 42x42” following the tweaks i just made to the girl’s previously bare breasts
1:51 PM: her bare breasts were drawing my attention to the detriment of the composition as a whole, so i covered them with her dress, which has made a big difference. i think it may be close to resolution now.
skateboarding girl. 42x42” as she looked following the changes i just made
10:18 AM: i knew where i wanted to go with skateboarding girl last night, so as soon as i entered the studio i got straight to work without having breakfast. i’m on a break now and we’re going tpo take a walk up the trail while it’s still cool, so i’ll post more when we’re back.
STUDY OF A MATISSE PAINTING I MADE ON 1/12/24
7:33 am: matisse is one of the masters i study. sometimes in order to learn more i make little studies like this one, from january 12 of this year.
today i’m asking myself: what can i learn form this that i can apply to the painting i’m currently working on: skateboarding girl?
skateboarding girl, continued... /
skateboarding girl, 42x42” oil & collage on linen, as she looked following today’s session
2:29 PM: i took skateboarding girl to the next level today. as are all my recent paintings, it’s a figurative abstraction , where the figures anchor the entire composition and give the viewer a doorway into the balance of colors and forms constituting the composition. i believe my main mentor, tsarouchis, would get it. although this would be a leap forward for him and his ‘60’s-70’s sensibility, he was so anchored in the history of great art over time, that he would not, i believe, have the slightest difficulty understanding where i’m at, and the role he played and continues to play.
DETAIL
changes to "skateboarding girl" /
skateboarding girl, 42x42”, oil & collage on linen
4:19PM: i worked on this one yesterday but it’s still in process. i could not for the life of me find the title of that painting, other than still life with refugees,” but there’s another painting with the same name. so go figure!
so it now has a new name: skateboarding girl.
still life with refugees stretched today / /
still life with refugees, 42x42” oil and collage on linen as it looked after i streched it today
2:34 PM: today i was in the mood to stretch still life with refugees, which as been tacked to my wall since i completed it on may 14. it looks so much better, it makes me want to stretch the others. i’ll have to wait on the 24x28” recent ones, because the stretcher bars i got were too thin & fragile and cracked when i applied any pressure. so i sent photos to blick, where i bought them and asked for a refund so i could get sturdier ones.